Taking outsourcing to an extreme, Bank of New Zealand decided that instead of figuring out why one woman’s charges ended up on another customer’s account, they would just give the customer the woman’s name, home address, work address, email address and cellphone number so they could settle things for themselves.

The Carterton man, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald that when he and his wife noticed the Auckland purchase they called BNZ to ask what went wrong.

He said he was “astounded” when a staff member denied the bank was responsible and then gave him Mrs Hansford’s home address, work address, mobile phone number and private email address so he could sort the situation out himself.

“We were advising them of a fraudulent transaction and they couldn’t care less,” he said.

“I was incredulous and surprised and wondering why the bank didn’t do basic checks like the person’s name and address before the transaction. Their basic response was ‘tough – if you don’t like it – tough’. Which was when we cancelled the account.”

Bank of New Zealand offered the woman $2,000 to apologize for sharing her personal information. She turned it down and canceled her account.